There was a time when classical scholars paid minimum if any attention to the early Christian texts, leaving them to patristic scholars. Fortunately, by the influential contributions of Peter Brown, Averil Cameron, and Alan Cameron, late antiquity was distinguished as a separate object of research, increasing the number of historians working with postclassical texts. This earlier tendency to somehow neglect texts composed in late antiquity reflected on scholarship on Alexander too. Thus, for example, no monographs covering early Christian receptions of Alexander were written. Djurslev's Alexander the Great in the Early Christian Tradition fills that scholarly vacuum. His recent study explores what the early Christians did say about Alexander the Great. The volume focuses on the time span from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine.
In chapter 1, Djurslev analyses the key Christian authors who discussed Alexander in their works. This analysis is extremely valuable, since Classical scholars—as well as average readers—are undoubtedly less familiar with some of these early Christian authors like Julius Africanus, Methodius of Olympus, and Arnobius Sicca. Chapter 2 explores the themes originally appearing in the classical tradition but which the early Christian authors picked up and recycled to serve their rhetorical intentions. An interesting source material discussed is Alexander's alleged letter to his mother Olympias where the king stated that the Egyptian gods were actually men.
Chapter 3 explores the way that the Christians recycled the Jewish tradition on Alexander. Perhaps the most intriguing part of Alexander's Jewish—and Christian—receptions is his alleged role in the Book of Daniel. The ambiguity of the Book of Daniel was made ever more intriguing by the author's announcement that the content of his divine visions would remain unsolved until “the end of time” (Daniel 12:4). Thus, for the early Christians, the Book of Daniel was evidently an object of great eschatological interest. One could argue that detecting the “real” intensions of the author of the Book of Daniel is much more problematic than exploring how the text was interpreted in the works of Josephus and early Christian intellectuals like Hippolytus of Rome and Jerome.
The Book of Daniel does not refer to Alexander by name. However, the prophecy with a reference to a he-goat with a great horn (Daniel 8:3–22) is indeed easily identified with Alexander, as Djurslev shows.
Another vision in the Book of Daniel is the one of the four magnificent beasts emerging from the sea. Obviously, these beasts are interpreted as representations of kingdoms that follow one another in the course of history. “The third beast” was described as a four-winged and four-headed leopard while “the fourth beast” was a beast even more impressive in its destructive powers (7:6–7). It has been discussed which of these was meant to resemble the realm of Alexander. Djurslev suggests that, according to the author's original intention, the fourth beast described Alexander and his realm. The majority of the early Christian authors—like Hippolytus, John Chrysostom, Aphrahat, and Jerome—saw that the four-headed leopard, regarded as a swift attacker, was the prophet's reference to Alexander's kingdom that came to existence by fast conquest.
Djurslev meritoriously and comprehensively analyses early Christian writers’ views on the prophetical writings. In his analysis, Djurslev points out that, interestingly, Christian authors omitted the topos of fortune, replacing it with the reception of Alexander's conquest as part of the biblical drama. Djurslev also makes the interesting conclusion that in the East, Christians wrote more about Alexander's role in the Book of Daniel, since they did not regard Revelation canonical, in contrast to the Christians in the West (except Jerome) who focused on John's Apocalypse instead of Old Testament prophets. Chapter 4 focuses on Alexander's myth in the early Christian histories and chronicles. As Djurslev shows, Christians did not merely adopt stories around Alexander but also rhetorical techniques such as drawing comparisons (comparatio) from their non-Christian predecessors.
As Djurslev points out, Alexander was incorporated into Christian literature before the earliest Christian versions of the Alexander Romance. Djurslev ends up with the conclusion that there is no single view of Alexander among the early Christian authors, but they were adeptly using multiple traditions (160–161). With great skill, Djurslev detects how the stories circulated from the classical writers to their Christian counterparts, whereas the question of why Alexander was used receives less attention in the study. What were the ideological goals or dimensions behind the early Christian interpretations? What role did these interpretations play in the early Christians’ identity-making project? Imitatio Alexandri is a concept that seems to be an important part of Alexander's legacy not only in ancient Rome but also in the Middle Ages and in early modern Europe. One might ask: Did imitatio Christi or imitatio Pauli somehow challenge or replace imitatio Alexandri? Djurslev shows he is well acquainted with the previous research. He even makes references to papyri which are rarely used as part of the analysis in the reception studies of Alexander. I highly recommend this elegantly written volume for everyone interested in Alexander the Great and his reception, as well as for those interested in the early Christian reception of the classical tradition.
